Oil spill surpasses Valdez as nation’s worst

Thursday

May 27, 2010 at 12:01 AMMay 27, 2010 at 11:46 AM

COVINGTON, La. (AP) — The Gulf oil spill has surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst in U.S. history, according to new estimates released today, but the Coast Guard and BP said an untested procedure to stop it seemed to be working.

A team of scientists trying to determine how much oil has been flowing since the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later found the rate was more than twice and possibly up to five times as high as previously thought.

Even using the most conservative estimate, that means the leak has grown to nearly 19 million gallons over the past five weeks, surpassing the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, which at about 11 million gallons had been the nation’s worst spill. Under the highest Gulf spill estimate, nearly 39 million gallons might have leaked. BP did not immediately comment on the new estimate.

Last week, BP inserted a mile-long tube to siphon some of the oil into a tanker. The tube sucked up 924,000 gallons, but engineers had to dismantle it so they could start the risky “top kill” procedure to try to cut off the flow altogether by shooting heavy drilling fluid into the well. If that works, BP will inject cement into the well to seal it. The top kill has been used above ground but has never been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. BP pegged its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.

Lt. Cmdr. Tony Russell, an aide to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said today the mud was stopping some oil and gas but had a ways to go before it proved successful. The top kill started last night, and it could be several days before officials know whether it is working.

BP spokesman Tom Mueller also discounted news reports that the top kill had worked. “We appreciate the optimism, but the top kill operation is continuing through the day today — that hasn’t changed,” he said this morning. “We don’t anticipate being able to say anything definitive on that until later today.”

Oil is coating birds and delicate wetlands along the Louisiana coast, and the political fallout from the spill has reached all the way to Washington, where the head of the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned today.

Minerals Management Service Director Elizabeth Birnbaum stepped down just hours before a planned White House news conference where President Barack Obama was expected to extend a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling.

Birnbaum and her agency came under withering criticism from lawmakers of both parties over lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. An internal Department of Interior report released earlier this week found that between 2000 and 2008, agency staff members accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas firms and used government computers to view pornography. Birnbaum had run the service since July.

After receiving the results of a 30-day safety review from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Obama also planned to delay controversial lease sales off the coast of Alaska and cancel entirely plans for drilling lease sales in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia, a White House aide said.

The Coast Guard pulled commercial fishing boats from oil cleanup efforts in Breton Sound off the Louisiana coast yesterday after several people became ill. Crew members on three vessels reported nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains, the Coast Guard said. Four people were hospitalized, including one who was flown to a hospital.

Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Ala.

The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science’s Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume recorded since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school, said the thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet. He said it’s more than 6 miles wide.

Scientists said they are worried the undersea plumes might be from chemical dispersants used to break up the oil a mile under the surface.

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